Emmi Schlicht

I am studying mating systems. In animals such as birds, this refers to the causes and consequences of behaviour that often starts with mate choice and may culminate in extensive parental care. In these traits, species often display typical patterns, linking mating behaviour to social structure and sex roles. I am interested in the evolutionary stability of these interspecific patterns.

Alongside characteristic variation between species, there also is extraordinary diversity in reproductive behaviour among individuals of the same species. In birds, this is perhaps most obvious in facultative polygyny (the occurrence of some males with multiple pair bonds), extra-pair behaviour (copulations between individuals that do not form a pair bond) and variation in parental care. Using long-term data from free-living birds, my work tries to understand these reproductive decisions by investigating correlations with parameters like age, breeding experience or social familiarity.

I am also studying consequences of variation in reproductive behaviour for complete populations, for instance, effects of extra-pair behaviour on the strength of sexual selection.  The traits I am interested in thus stand at the junction of individual reproductive behaviour and a species’ mating and care system. My ultimate aim is to gain a better understanding of this link, where species-specific patterns arise from the combined behaviour of individuals.